The most important of the north European tiles are undoubtedly those made in Delft from 160o on. These are plain, square tiles, each containing a figure, a bit of landscape or a genre group, freely painted in a grey-blue upon a background of bluish-white. The little free-hand sketches were so instinct with life, and the colour so subtly beautiful that by the middle of the 17th century these tiles enjoyed a great vogue, not only throughout the Germanic countries, but in England and the American Colonies as well. Although outside of Holland they were chiefly used for fireplace and stove facings, in Holland itself they were often employed for wall wainscotings. Some of the later examples have the decorations in manganese purple instead of blue. During the 18th century many attempts were made to imitate the Delft ware and during the latter half of the 18th century, particularly in England, scenes printed from copper plates were used instead of the painted scenes.
Although many of the ancient pottery centres are still producing tiles in the traditional manner and although modern imitations of old wares are of excellent quality, the greatest modern contribution to wall tile design has been the great development of square or rectangular tiles with relatively uneven surfaces and shapes on which colours and glazes of the greatest variety are unevenly flowed, so that each tile has marked individuality of colour and texture. All sorts of crackled and crystalline effects are common
as well as the blending of two or more colours. The scientific development of glazings and colourings gives the decorator an almost unlimited palette for either exterior or interior use, even gold tiles being simple and comparatively inexpensive. There has been a corresponding development in the use of tile in relief, usually with the background sunk and glazed in a different colour.
Important centres of tile production at the present day (1929) are: Asia Minor, for so-called Persian tiles; north Africa and Spain, for Moorish and Spanish tiles; north Italy for faience; Holland for "Delft" tiles; Belgium for many types of hand-made wall tiles; Germany for polychrome, machine-pressed, floor tiles; England for reproductions of Gothic floor tiles and richly figured tile work generally; and the United States, particularly New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio and southern California for vitrified floor and hand-made wall tiles.